


Ancestry of the Holy War: Game Overview

by Runespoor



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, Homestuck
Genre: Alternian Culture, Gen, fictional article about a fictional game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fictional overview of Seisen no Keifu, if Fire Emblem was a thing on Alternia.</p><p><b>Status: BANNED</b> (possession and distribution grounds for culling)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancestry of the Holy War: Game Overview

**Genre:**  tactical RPG

 **Platform:**  antique; your best bet is an emulator; your best bet for  _that_  is someone who is nook-deep in illegal activities and won't mind giving a sibling a hand.

 **Status: BANNED** (possession and distribution grounds for culling)

**Game History**

Created some sixty sweeps after the Summoner's Rebellion, the origins of  _Fire Emblem: Ancestry of the Holy War_ are unclear. 

Persistent rumors have linked the banned game to the Intelligent System studios, perhaps seeing in the combat system a forerunner to the successful series of Tearring Saga, despite the studio's denial. The original score has been lost to the ages, though it's a fair bet to assume it must have included its own version of the resistant anthem "Together We Ride" (banned). The in-game artwork, as well, isn't saying much, displaying the typical features of the time period, and as such could be attributed to any dozen of artists, and the mere existence of concept art is a question in itself.

As for the code, it has been reworked so many times, by the hands of so many tech-savvy fans, that it is nigh impossible to distinguish between the original scripts and more recent additions - try finding a version today where Celice can't get conciliatory with Yuriya! Thorough researching of the subject tend to show that Yuriya and Celice were originally only meant to be able to be concupiscent - possibly to emphasize Yuriya's conflicted yet enduring loyalties to her co-descendent Yuryus without making her seem like a cheat. 

Alone in the series, the plot of  _Ancestry of the Holy War_  follows the crusade of two generations of heroes. The first cycle concerns itself with the campaign of an army composed of all stratas in the hemospectrum, and their ultimate betrayal. The second cycle narrates how the descendents of the first generation rightfully rise against the unlawful monarch and return society to its former prosperity. 

With such potentially subversive material, it's not any surprise that the game was never distributed legally. 

Nevertheless,  _Ancestry of the Holy War_  picked up quite a following, especially among the oppressed such as the Followers of the Signless, and several unconnnected installments have even been developped by devoted fans, often with the same message of civil disobedience and unity of blood colors - or even more radical messages. 

The first such game,  _Thracia 413_ , tells the story of some of the most popular of the descendants, Leahfe and Nannah, and takes place the sweep before the second part of Holy War. A smattering of clues and idiosyncrasies tend to prove that  _Thracia 413_  may in fact originate from the same masterminds as those who did Holy War, but this remains disputed by experts and Imperial authorities alike to this day.

**Memorable aspects of _Ancestry of the Holy War_  include:**

**\- Limebloods in a positive light:** certainly the most subversive and controversial facet of the game, the characters of lime-blooded Deidra and her descendants Yuriya and Yuryus. 

Coming from nothing, Deidra soon reaches power thanks to highblood Sigurd's pity for her. She is nothing but helpful to the party and the recipient of many answers Sigurd and his allies are looking for. Her descendant Yuriya is similarly gifted and similarly helpful. 

Only Yuryus follows the traditional stereotype of the power-hungry, malevolent lime-blood who affects highblood mannerisms, and even that is nuanced by the fact that Yuryus turns out to be the servant of Gl'bgolyb - and as such the instrument of a order more ancient and legitimate than the blood system itself.

 **\- Hemodiverse romances:** one of the most time-consuming and fascinating features of the game is that of the possibility to manage the quadrants of the characters - a specificity for which the Fire Emblem series has become justly renowned. 

 _Ancestry of the Holy War_  takes it further by allowing players to see the descendents of each pairing (spawning heated debate in the midst of the scientific community at the same time: is it truly possible that descendants, though gifted with the same basic skills and potential as their ancestors, may develop differently according to the concupiscent partner of their ancestor that contributed to the genetic slurry? or does nurture alone suffice to explain the divergences between ancestor and descendant?). 

Unlike every other Fire Emblem game, _Ancestry of the Holy War_ only keeps track of the concupiscent relationships (conciliatory quadrants are imposed by the storyline, thus anchoring the epic moirallegiance of Sigurd and Deidra in the collective unconscious). Such hemo-diverse romances include the potential matespritships of Prince Lehvin, an incognito seadweller, with olive-blood bodyguard Ferree or rust-blood dancer Sylvia, the kismessitudes of highblooded princess Laksis with mustard-blood Bewulf or indigo sorceress Tiltyu with jade-blood Hazzel... to such an extant that it's often easier to name relationships where participants aren't separated by at least a couple hemo rungs (Sylvia's second flushed pretendant is another rust-blood that she quickly works out is related to her; blue-blooded sword goddess Aierah's heated kismessitude with Laksis is all but fixed, given the name of her descendant Lakche; the teal-blooded trio of Jamkah, Brigid and Aideen builds relationships most easily with one another).

 **\- Rails with pails (and reproductive rights):** Fire Emblem's notoriety for “conciliatory pails” and quadrant-smearing owes a lot to this installment (though the later Sacred Stones helped). Obviously, Celice himself is the result of a reproductive act between Sigurd and Deidra. More than one player has noted that Laksis' matesprit Eltsan rarely misses an opportunity to act as her auspistice, that Sylvia's overtures to her rust-blood pretendant are edged in paleness, and that Lakche's flushed affections for her moirail Shanan can be requited. Nothing is made explicit, but filling in the blanks doesn't require much effort. 

Monoquadrantism is also somewhat flouted, especially where the character of Laksis is concerned – no matter who the player chose to quadrant her with, the hints that she was in a kismessitude with Aierah and Bewulf and a matespritship with Finnin remain in the dialogue.

In-game dialogue from a nameless and generic older troll insisting that “such practices are strictly forbidden, for obvious reasons” allows both the player and the developer to distance themselves from accusations. 

More importantly, it allows for the interpretation that Sigurd's fate and that of his army was deserved, on a cosmic scale: by disobeying such primordial taboos, they brought disaster upon themselves, and they were punished as befit their crimes. The Condesce's iron grip over reproductive rights makes any disobedience or disagreement grounds for culling; it's possible the sentence was included in the hopes of getting the game past the censorrowers' radar. 

Obviously, this failed, though the fact that _Holy War_ is a subtle tract for reproductive freedom may not be the whole reason.

 **\- Historical parallels:** through coincidence or design, the plot bears stunning resemblance to the Summoner's Rebellion and the Cult of the Signless, both movements that stirred the Empire not long ago to a higblood's perspective. The message of hope carried out in the game - that another generation of heroes might arise to carry out the words first spread by their ancestors - found an echo in the preoccupations of followers of the Signless of the time. 

It's unknown whether Imperial services ever formally linked the two, each being banned on its own merits, but it's a certainty that the surveillance of culture goods around the time  _Ancestry of the Holy War_  was created was at an all-time high. We lost more than a handful of brothers and sisters to the Eduquisition during those times, often drawn out of their wise silence by shipping wars specifically designed by the Eduquisition as traps.

 

 _Ancestry of the Holy War_  is to this day a massively popular installment of the Fire Emblem series, and certainly their most ambitious project until  _Radiant Dawn_. Possession and distribution are sentenced to culling; it is, according to all sources, largely worth the risk.


End file.
